a blog about faith, hope, and mostly love

this world is not my home

As the music director at my church, I’ve been consciously choosing a lot of songs that have something about looking for Christ’s return. I think every song should mention it. I think that our entire lives should be based on the reality that He will return.

This sounds like hocus pocus to some. Like we are weak enough to need some crutch that some dude who died 2000 some years ago is going to return and save us and set everything right again. Yeah, yeah, we saw this movie where that guy goes and blows up that thing and we fight the robots and Sauron is defeated and The Ring is destroyed and we get to live on our own personal planet with 99 virgins. You’re nuts.

Much of my adult life I was skeptical of the belief system that is entirely based on some future event occurring. That we are living for some mystical pie in the sky where everyone is happy and at peace and singing kumbaya.

But it became clear to me as time went on that we are not in fact living for that day, we are living for every day and that God’s kingdom started already. Though it is not in its final form and we are not living in the perfected reality yet, we begin to see His dominion and grace whenever we seek to find it.

But it doesn’t make this life easier. Sometimes it makes it downright impossible. It’s like that saying that there’s nothing worse than hope. And so we try to focus on this life, the here and now, the minutiae and droll of day to day mini-crises. And we are told to make the most of this because it’s all we’re going to get so make it meaningful and make it last.

I have often speculated, and I have no scriptural basis for this whatsoever, that Christ hasn’t returned yet because His people don’t really want him to. We’ve bought into this idea that we need to make the most of this life. We chase after careers and marriages and family life and all these things that we can get. There’s nothing wrong with any of it, but like pastors like to say, we take good things and make them ultimate things. They consume us and become our whole lives and our purpose and our identity and what gets us out of bed.

And when one of those things go, where do we go?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not belittling the grief of loss. Loss of a parent, a child, a spouse. Losing a career you’ve worked so hard for. I dread the day when someone in my immediate family dies. Just thinking about it now makes me want to cry. It isn’t something you just pick yourself up from and brush off and move on. I would never say that.

But I do say, this world is not home. We must stop seeing it as such. To those who understand, you know what I mean. To those who think I’m crazy, well, you won’t get it and I won’t try to explain it to you. There are other blogs you can read instead 🙂 My heart and my gut says that those who have ears will hear me clearly – do not cling to the things that are not trustworthy. We will suffer death and loss. In this life, we will have sorrow upon sorrow. But with every parting, we must be reminded there is work still to be done and then we get to go home. And it is sad, but it is glorious.

… we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy… (from the letter of Titus chapter 3)

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in loving memory and honor of Rev. Tony Gibson united with Christ and his bride and a host of witnesses gone before him. oh glorious day.